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日本のヨガスケープ​ Conference 2.0 2019 Call for Papers

Global coercion-scapes

the political economy of Imaginative Consumption,implicated subjects, Wellness Tourism, and sustainable Development

July 09-13, ​2019Kyoto, Japan

The intention is to facilitate an international conference to discuss important social, political, environmental, and economic issues related to sustainable development in relation to the multi-trillion-dollar wellness industry. Of particular importance, and focus, is the wellness industry's yoga and spiritual tourism branch. Yoga’s global popularity is unprecedented. So too, are the ways in which it is instrumentalised by various state and non-state actors for both symbolic and economic capital. As wellness tourism continues to expand faster than any other sector of the global tourism industry, and yoga-inflected inner wellness tourism becomes the dominant contributor, it is important to critically examine the ways in which wellness tourism impacts on the environment and social networks directly and indirectly involved and/or exploited by niche and mass tourism, particularly in the global south. Now is ever more the time to discuss the ways in which 'over tourism' and 'tourist pollution' have become the defining markers of the industry.

While tourism is promoted as a key development vector; and yoga is promoted as pivotal vehicle for self-transformation; there are many ways, it seems, that the marketing narratives and eventual outcomes misalign. Particularly, when we enquire into the ways in which our own subjectivities are often implicated in unethical practices related to tacitly unwitting unlikely alliances in the pursuit of wellness and/or serious leisure. Regardless of asymmetric power relations and/or reward coercion resulting from neoliberal governmentality, how can we challenge the neoliberal commodification of not only 'yoga', but of ourselves?

Regardless of all the utopian-inspired appeals to purity, tradition, and authority found in wellness marketing; which are combined with the cultivation of a neo-romantic ethic, nostalgic mood, and neo-pagan deep ecological theology, it is observed that the carbon supply chain of the global tourism industry is responsible for approximately 8% of the total global carbon emissions. And, as more people travel, ostensibly for wellness, the very urgent question that needs to be asked is: In our attempt to purify and transform ourselves through 'secular tourism' or 'religious pilgrimage', how do we account for the pollution we cause during the spaces we move through to achieve this goal?

Therefore, savvy, enticing rhetoric that claims we can heal the world and transform ourselves through movement to exotically-othered lands is proven not to help the environment in the ways the marketing of 'yogations' is presented to actually do. What, then, are the ethical considerations linked to the inescapable environmental burdens and social consequences; where the locals are obfuscated, or worse, erased, not only from the alluring marketing but also the physical spaces they call 'home'?​Ultimately, this conference rests within an emancipatory paradigm that aims to critically examine the complex networks of desire and consumption related to transformational 'development'; not only of the individual, but also the community, nation, and world. This will lead to identifying ways in which sustainable development through wellness tourism might be better achieved; and, also, generate applied initiatives related to more strategic policy guidelines for government and private operators to adopt.